Officials are probing how a 51-year-old highway bridge came to collapse in the Italian port city of Genoa yesterday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 16 others as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.

'Luckily he had his cell phone - and his dog': Pooch saves owner stuck to waist in freezing mud

A man who got stuck in mud in a national park in Ohio has been rescued by his dog.

The man, who has not been named, was removing
duck blinds, which hunters use to conceal themselves from their prey,
from Buck Creek State Park when he became trapped in the mud yesterday.

Luckily, he had his mobile phone with him and
was able to call emergency services, but when they arrived, they found
that the water was too shallow to reach the man.

Enter man’s best friend – assistant fire chief
Kathy Bartlett told the Huffington Post that "the dog was running back
and forth, a nervous wreck with his owner out there."

Video shows the man huddling in vain against the cold and blowing into his hands, paralysed by the mud, which looks to come up past his hips.

One of the responders decided that getting the
dog to take a rope out to his stricken master was worth a try, and he
proved to be right.

The footage shows the plucky pooch rushing
straight out to his owner, who was pulled to safety shortly afterwards,
and a not a minute too soon - the temperature in the middle of the pond was estimated to be around 0.5 degrees Celsius.